| MDMAniac said: Digital_Foundry says that ultra-high AA strongly suggest that the Halo: Reach trailer isn't as in-game as @geoffkeighley promised it would be so I'm dissapointed a bit, if so. But do you guys know if VGA trailer was supposed to show in-game? I just don't know |
Okay, first off, it's definitely in-game and real time, because there is still some aliasing.
Onto view distances. It seems the Reach engine is a lot better, because Bungie is making much better use of 'real' geometry mixed with skyboxed mixed with matte to keep performance up.
The white line is where the 'real' geometry ends and where you start seeing lower-detail skybox. the cyan line is where you stop seeing skybox and start seeing a matte painting.
This a big improvement over Halo 3. Halo 3's super wide shots like this were 99% matte-only. Most cutscenes were real-geometry closeups or just a skybox to keep performance up. Not anything wrong with that, mind, but it's obvious how much better the Reach engine is. The cutscenes in this game should be spectacular.
If you still don't know what i'm talking about, this is what the scene would look like from the side if i'm correct:
It looks like they've got a new lighting and shadowing strategy compared to halo 2 and 3. Looks like everything casts a shadow, no matter how far above the ground it's sitting:
Also the shadows on everything combine correctly, something not even the source engine is doing on PC (I believe, I haven't looked at episode 1 or 2 yet, so I may be wrong, and apologize if so). They're also very edge-blurred so they look very nice. Also this shot makes the slight film grain effect they're putting on everything more obvious. The film grain is 'smoothing' out the image thanks to how our eyes work and does not allow any harsh edges to grab our eye's attention.
very nice use of depth focus to keep aliasing from showing up on the near arm. But this shot is the most obvious answer to "how is Bungie pulling off that much AA on 360?". Well, the answer is, they're not. They are however exploiting the human eye and using a new technique. Look at the edges of the arm:
Yep, they're use a new technique where the edges are blurred into the surrounding area. This assists the 360's hardware AA and creates smoother edges. This technique has a name but I'm forgetting it now. It's similiar to what Nintendo used in Mario Galaxy to make poly edges seem super smooth. Now it's being used on the 360.
Another shot showing the technique. When you watch in HD, it's really obvious:
So, final verdict: Bungie played it a lot safer this time around in regards to engine features, believe it or not. There is no real time helmet reflections. What we saw in this trailer? Yeah, the final game is gonna look that good. Halo 3 actually looked better than the E32006 trailer (minus the realtime visor reflection, which had to be dropped). Everything you saw in this trailer is possible on the 360, due to clever technical tricks and exploitation of how the human eye works.
The graphics for Reach can only go up from here.
Of course, all we care about is the gameplay, right?
Right?
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Found that on a website I frequent. Kind of sad that this guy can explain the high AA but "professionals" like Digital Foundry can't.
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